The number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will grow rapidly in the coming years. A comprehensive regulatory framework for controlling and managing the use of UAVs is essential to addressing legitimate safety, security, privacy, and nuisance concerns. Because of the potential encroachment by UAVs into the airspace of conventional aircraft, as well as their potential as a delivery system for weapons, much of the initial regulatory focus has been on preventing UAVs from flying into restricted airspaces.
Approaches for preventing UAVs from flying in restricted airspaces have been an important discussion topic of the emerging UAV industry. One such approach is procedural: educating commercial and personal UAV owner/operators to learn and obey flight restrictions. This approach relies on the discipline of owner/operators and is not likely to succeed in a future environment in which potentially tens of millions of UAVs may be operating in the U.S. airspace, with similar numbers in airspaces of regions around the world.
Another approach involves employing the UAV Operating System (OS). Some UAV manufacturers are beginning to incorporate geographical restrictions in their operating systems. While this development is a positive step toward UAV regulation, the changing and dynamic nature of geographical restrictions creates a challenge for the UAV to maintain an up-to-date and dynamic database. This challenge will be particularly acute in a future environment involving tens of millions of UAVs in the U.S. airspace.
The above approaches do not provide a sufficient regulatory framework for the most basic monitoring and control that a regulator would require for UAV operations in airspaces. Such functions include:                Registering UAV Owner/Operators (O/Os) with a designated authority;        Registering UAVs with a designated authority, where every UAV has a unique Electronic ID (EID);        Capturing the O/O identity of every UAV so that it is bound to the UAV EID. Thus, when a UAV causes damage or some other event, the O/O can be identified and held accountable;        Flight Planning, where a UAV O/O is required to submit a “flight plan” and get approval before the UAV is allowed to fly;        Preventing UAVs from flying in restricted airspaces in a practical way whether the application is for commercial or personal use (prevention must be more than procedural);        Maintaining real-time and historical data on UAV operations, including where and when they operate, what payload(s), and for what application; and        Achieving the above objectives at the lowest cost in O/O time and money and with a minimal impact on the design of UAVs.        
Without an innovative approach, the default aviation regulatory processes being applied to UAVs are slow and not well equipped to progress at the pace at which the UAV industry is growing. In addition, it is not clear that regulatory authorities for controlling conventional aviation have the skills, authority, or vision to properly and appropriately regulate the lowest classes of UAVs, whose size, weight, and flight parameters are orders of magnitude below that of conventional aircraft. Finally, the issue of who has legal authority over airspace close to ground level is under some question. As one considers the use of UAVs in airspace close to the ground, local jurisdictions and property owners have some practical, if not legal, authority in addition to the civil aviation authority (e.g., the FAA in the United States).